Will Davison fends off Mark Winterbottom and Jamie Whincup to win thrilling V8 Supercars race three at Barbagallo

The race turned on a safety car period that decided all the teams' strategies, and resulted in most of the field having to run much longer than they would have wanted to on the soft tyres.

In the opening stint, those on softs flew forward. Polesitter Whincup (Triple Eight Holden) established an early six-second lead over fellow soft runner Winterbottom (Ford Performance Racing), while Brad Jones Holden man Jason Bright used the softs to surge through from 16th on the grid to third, ahead of top hard tyre user Davison in the second FPR car.

A collision between Taz Douglas and Tony D'Alberto then prompted a safety car on lap 14, with pitstops for the whole field in a confusing pit sequence that saw controversy over whether the pace car picked up the correct cars at the right time.

The outcome was that Whincup, Winterbottom and Bright led the field at the restart, all on hard tyres with a queue of drivers on faster softs behind them, led by Davison and Tekno's Michael Patrizi (up from a pre-pitstop 11th), but with all the soft runners knowing that 33 racing laps on the less durable rubber would be tough.

It did not take long for Davison and Patrizi to blast into first and second places ahead of Whincup and Winterbottom, while Bright drifted further back.

But as expected, coming into the closing stages the drivers on hard tyres were in much better shape.

Whincup and Winterbottom got past Patrizi with six laps to go and set off after Davison, closing up to his tail on lap 48 of 50.

The reigning champion threw everything he had at his 2012 title rival, but Davison was able to hang on, and as Whincup focused on trying to take the lead, Winterbottom was able to sneak through into second at the very last corner to make it another FPR one-two in a top three covered by just half a second.

Bright regained ground as others' soft tyres wilted too and finished just behind the three leaders. Patrizi hung on for an impressive fifth.

Whincup's team-mate Craig Lowndes fell from second to fourth off the line, then lost out badly in the safety car confusion and dropped to 15th, before recovering to sixth.

Results - 50 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                Time/Gap
 1.  Will Davison         FPR Ford             50m38.3093s
 2.  Mark Winterbottom    FPR Ford               + 0.4947s
 3.  Jamie Whincup        Triple 8 Holden        + 0.5534s
 4.  Jason Bright         Brad Jones Holden      + 1.9464s
 5.  Michael Patrizi      Tekno Holden           + 5.4920s
 6.  Craig Lowndes        Triple 8 Holden       + 14.4271s
 7.  Fabian Coulthard     Brad Jones Holden     + 17.2996s
 8.  Tim Slade            Rosenberg/SBR Ford    + 17.4375s
 9.  Michael Caruso       Garry Rogers Holden   + 21.0205s
10.  Steven Johnson       Dick Johnson Ford     + 21.4483s
11.  Greg Murphy          Kelly Holden          + 22.6970s
12.  James Courtney       HRT Holden            + 25.9236s
13.  Russell Ingall       Walkinshaw Holden     + 26.7369s
14.  Garth Tander         HRT Holden            + 31.2808s
15.  Dean Fiore           Triple F Ford         + 31.6787s
16.  Steve Owen           Dick Johnson Ford     + 35.9661s
17.  Karl Reindler        Kelly Holden          + 36.2146s
18.  Shane van Gisbergen  Stone Brothers Ford   + 41.0404s
19.  Rick Kelly           Kelly Holden          + 41.3609s
20.  Jonathon Webb        Tekno Holden          + 43.1531s
21.  Lee Holdsworth       Stone Brothers Ford   + 45.9684s
22.  James Moffat         Dick Johnson Ford     + 49.1682s
23.  Todd Kelly           Kelly Holden          + 59.2442s
24.  Alexandre Premat     Garry Rogers Holden      + 1 lap
25.  Taz Douglas          Dumbrell Holden         + 3 laps
26.  David Reynolds       Rod Nash/FPR Ford       + 5 laps

Retirements:

     David Wall           Britek/BJR Holden        46 laps
     Tony D'Alberto       D'Alberto Ford           14 laps